Pedal 2019 is in the works!

Old Brooklyn’s Pedal for Prizes is back in 2019 celebrating its 9th year! This year PFP will take place at a new location in the heart of Old Brooklyn: Pearl Road United Methodist Church (Also the new home of the Old Brooklyn Farmer’s Market).

Get your bikes tuned up and save the date for Saturday, May 18th! More details can be found here.

Pedal 2018 is almost here!

Our 8th annual Old Brooklyn Pedal for Prizes will be here before you know it. We are hard at work putting the finishing touches on this year’s event so that you have a great time.

Here are some things for you to know:

Location: We’re back at Estabrook Recreation Center, 4125 Fulton Road, much like the last few years. Be sure to thank them for hosting us once again. Participants are free to use the facilities.  There are locker rooms for you to change if you’d like after the ride.  There’s also an indoor swimming pool and playground and ball fields outside. So there’s a lot to do if you finish the ride early.

Parking: There’s limited parking at Estabrook Recreation Center, and it will fill up quickly.  We ask everyone to please respect the area of the parking lot that is taped off.

Another option is that you can park on the street on W 50th, W 49th, etc. Shadyside Avenue connects to the Estabrook Rec campus. Same for W 56th, 57th, etc. We just ask you to please be respectful to our Old Brooklyn neighbors.

Everywhere else that seems privately owned, park at your own risk.

T-Shirts and Backpacks: We will have some past-season Pedal for Prizes t-shirts for sale for $20/each.  Proceeds will be used for us to bring back Old Brooklyn Pedal for Prizes in 2019.  It’s money well spent if you enjoy the event and would like to see it continue in the future.

We will be giving away backpacks for you to take on the ride. Register and you get one free, courtesy of some great neighborhood businesses that support the event.

Weather: The event happens on Saturday regardless of the weather.  Right now, the forecast is calling for near perfect weather, but we all know that that can change. Prepare for the weather!

Expedited Registration: This is a huge help to us. Please print this form and fill it out for each participant before coming to the event. Bring it to the registration table and we’ll check you in quickly. Save yourself from having to wait in a long line and help us keep everything going smoothly!

For registration, you can walk with your bike inside. However, we ask to please be respectful of the property (i.e. do not walk on the gym floor with cycling shoes).

Registration: We will begin registering participants at 10am. You’ll be able to head out after doing so, and there’s no need to wait around for an official send-off.  We will register participants up until 1pm.

Pedal for Prizes is completely free and open to cyclists of all ages and skill levels.

You’ll sign a release form (again, print it, fill it out, and bring to the event if possible!) receive a map of twenty destinations and a punch card.  Cyclists are free to go on their way to as many destinations as they’d like in any order.  Stay at destinations as long as you’d like.

We reserve the right to request proof that you have and will be using your bicycle for the event.

Raffle: The raffle begins promptly at 2pm. We will be raffling several brand new bikes, as well as many other prizes.  In all, we should have about 50 prizes valued at a minimum of $20. We won’t have a final list until a day or two before the event, as we are receiving and packaging prizes up until the last minute.

Help us move the raffle along by returning punctually and dropping your tickets in the bins of the prizes you’d like to win.

Please remain patient during the raffle and help others be patient as well.  Your cooperation will help it go quickly and smoothly, which everyone would like.

50/50 Raffle: This is the third year we will be hosting a 50/50 raffle as a fundraiser for next year’s event. If you enjoy the event, please consider participating, as every dollar helps us host a first-class event next year. Thanks to the Old Brooklyn Collaborators for their help.

Destinations: This year’s event will have twenty destinations.  You won’t know the destinations until you register at Estabrook Rec.

We provide you a map and addresses of destinations at which you’ll have your card stamped.  Some participants have had success using GPS or riding in small groups in the past.

Destinations will stop punching cards around 1:15pm.  Return to Estabrook Rec in time for you to exchange your punch card for raffle tickets and drop them in your desired prize bins.  Remember, the raffle starts at 2pm.

Cheating: Pedal for Prizes is meant to be a fun event done by bicycle. We are hardworking volunteers who have put hundreds, if not thousands, of our own time into coordinating a fun event for the community.  We have no tolerance for people who cheat and drive their cars from destination to destination. Participants found to be using motor  vehicles for the event will have their punch cards revoked and will be barred from participating in the raffle. Do the right thing.

If you observe instances of cheating, please report it to us immediately.  Merchants and people staffing our destinations will be keeping an eye out for foul play as well.

The most important post of the year

Pedal 2017

In case you haven’t heard, Old Brooklyn Pedal for Prizes is back this year!

The event takes place Saturday, May 20, 2017 at Estabrook Recreation Center, so please save the date. You’re not going to want to miss this!

Stay tuned for more information on our blog and Facebook!

Thank you to our sponsors

Pedal for Prizes would like to thank the following sponsors for helping us make this year’s event a major success (in no particular order):

(D) denotes 2015 destinations

Dollar Bank (D)

Ameriflag (D)

Old Brooklyn CDC

Greater Cleveland Partnership

Joy Machines Bike Shop

Eddy’s Bike Shop

Century Cycles

Cleveland Cavaliers

Lake Erie Monsters

Cleveland Gladiators

Kelly Grealis, Author

Bike Cleveland

Ohio City Bike Co-op

Honey Hut (D)

South Hills Hardware

Jackie Sliva

Jim Ptacek

OBALL

Westerfield Supply (D)

Sonny’s Auto Sales

Broadview Schaaf Marathon

Speed Exterminating

The Studio Cleveland

Memphis Bakery (D)

Old Brooklyn Cravery

Gus’ Diner

Gyro Guys (D)

Jack Frost Donuts (D)

The Trading Post (D)

COSE

Beachland Ballroom

Root Cafe

Green Thumb Design

Mary Anne Auner

Cleveland Maennerchor (D)

Fred’s Breads

All Things for You (D)

Ziggy’s Produce & Farm Market (D)

Bella Pizza

Wexler’s Tavern & Eatery (D)

Name Brand Paints (D)

Coney Company (D)

Jindra Floral Design

Ballado’s Barbershop & Hair Salon (D)

Rising Harvest Farm (D)

Ben Franklin Community Garden (D)

Dr. James Campbell, MetroHealth

Amanda Rouse, Tupperware

Old Brooklyn Collaborators

City of Cleveland

Estabrook Recreation Center

Kehoe Brothers Printing

Council President Kevin Kelley

Sausage Shoppe

Thank you also to our volunteers:

Kevin Cronin

Josef Arvidsson

Bill Wolohan

Laurie McCombs

Angie Schmitt

Gissell Rivera

Nick McElroy

Laurie Ann Moennich

Nick Demarchi

Jerry Lynch

Mark Brake

Dan Peplin

Jocy Shamatta

The most important post of the year

Here’s our annual helpful information post for this year’s Pedal for Prizes:

Expedited Registration (important!)

Please do us a huge favor. Print this form and fill it out for each participant before coming to the event. Bring it to the registration table and we’ll check you in quickly.  Save yourself from having to wait in a long line on Saturday and help us keep everything going smoothly!

For registration, you can walk with your bike inside. However, we ask to please be respectful of the property (i.e. do not walk on the gym floor with cycling shoes).

What to Bring

Your bike, helmet, and a lock.  We advise everyone to practice bicycle safety, including obeying local traffic laws.  Helmets are strongly encouraged, but not required.

You may also want to bring money to spend on lunch, a snack, or a drink out in the neighborhood.

Registration

Registration begins at 11am.  We’ve increased the amount of time for participants to try to reach all twenty destinations at an enjoyable pace. We will register participants up until 2pm.

Pedal for Prizes is completely free and open to cyclists of all ages and skill levels.

You’ll sign a release form and receive a map of twenty destinations and a punch card.  Cyclists are free to go on their way to as many destinations as they’d like in any order.  Stay at destinations as long as you’d like.

We reserve the right to request you bring your bicycle to the registration table.

Weather

The event happens on Saturday regardless of the weather.  Right now, the forecast is calling for a chance of rain and temps in the 70’s, but we all know that that can change! Prepare for the weather!

If you’d like to change into dry clothes in the event that it rains, you can feel free to the locker rooms at Estabrook Rec. More on that below.

Parking

There’s limited parking at Estabrook Recreation Center, and it will fill up quickly.  We’ve been given a preliminary approval for you to park in the rear of Memphis-Fulton Shopping Center. Please save the parking in front of the shopping center for patrons.  Please DO NOT park at Drug Mart, as you risk being towed. We ask that you do not park at Dollar Bank, as they need their limited parking for customers. Everywhere else that seems privately owned, park at your own risk.

Another option is that you can park on the street on W 50th, W 49th, etc. Shadyside Avenue connects to the Estabrook Rec campus. Same for W 56th, 57th, etc. We just ask you to please be respectful to our Old Brooklyn neighbors.

Bike Parking

We tentatively will have bike racks courtesy of Ohio City Bike Co-op, so there will be at least one place to lock up when you come in for the raffle.

Cheating

Pedal for Prizes is meant to be a fun event done by bicycle. We have no tolerance for people who use other means of transportation (i.e. motor vehicle) to travel to destinations.  Participants found to be using forms of transportation other than a bicycle will have their punch cards revoked and will be barred from participating in the raffle.

If you observe instances of cheating, please report it to us immediately.  Merchants and people staffing our destinations will be keeping an eye out for foul play as well.

Estabrook Recreation Facilities

This is the first year we’re hosting Pedal at Estabrook Recreation Center.  Participants are free to use the facilities.  There are locker rooms for you to change if you’d like after the ride.  There’s also an indoor swimming pool and playground and ball fields outside. So there’s a lot to do if you finish the ride early.

Destinations

This year’s event will have twenty destinations.  You won’t know the destinations until you register at Estabrook Rec.

We provide you a map and addresses of destinations at which you’ll have your card stamped.  Some participants have had success using GPS or riding in small groups in the past.

Destinations will stop punching cards at 2:45pm.  Return to Estabrook Rec by 3pm and exchange your punch card for raffle tickets.

Raffle

The raffle begins promptly at 3:30pm. We will be raffling approximately four bikes, as well as many other prizes.  In all, we should have between 60 and 70 prizes valued at a minimum of $20. We won’t have a final list until a day or two before the event, as we are receiving and packaging prizes up until the last minute.

Help us move the raffle along by returning punctually and dropping your tickets in the bins of the prizes you’d like to win.

Please remain patient during the raffle and help others be patient as well.  Your cooperation will help it go quickly and smoothly, which everyone would like.

50/50 Raffle

This is the first year we will be hosting a 50/50 raffle as a fundraiser for next year’s event. If you enjoy the event, please consider participating, as every dollar helps us host a first-class event next year. Thanks to the Old Brooklyn Collaborators for their help.

Hot Dogs

The Old Brooklyn Collaborators, a group of business and nonprofit leaders who are active in the neighborhood, will be selling hot dogs at Estabrook. Proceeds benefit them in their future programming efforts, so please support them as well.

Why Pedal is moving to Estabrook Rec?

What do the first and sixth year of Pedal for Prizes have in common?  We’ll get to that answer in just a moment.

Many people have asked us why we’re moving this year’s Old Brooklyn Pedal for Prizes to Estabrook Recreation Center, especially considering that all five previous Pedal events started and ended at Loew Park.

We love Loew Park.  It’s one of our favorite places in Old Brooklyn and Cleveland.  It has made a fantastic backdrop for Pedal for Prizes over the last five years.

However, for our sixth annual event, we’re moving the start/finish to Estabrook Recreation Center, 4125 Fulton Road.  There’s a big reason for that: Like the very first Pedal for Prizes, we will be hosting the event without any grant money to help us pay for expenses.

Neighborhood Connections, a program of the Cleveland Foundation offering grants to grassroots groups for neighborhood projects, has been a huge supporter.  The organization provided small grants to us the last four years, which allowed us to really professionalize and grow the event.  We sincerely appreciate the generosity.

However, all good things must come to an end.  We unfortunately were not selected for a new grant in 2014, primarily because the demand for limited funds keeps increasing.  Also, it’s time for some other group of committed individuals to have the opportunity to pursue a project that benefits a Cleveland neighborhood.  We knew this day would come, and we’ve been preparing to the best of our ability.

As such, we need to reduce our expenses.  One of the ways we thought we could do so was by relocating the event to Estabrook Rec.  The tent, tables, porta-potties, and related expenses consumed 20-25% of our budget.  Estabrook is also weather-proof (which will be great if the weather this year is anything like last year).  We’ll tell you about more stuff going on at Estabrook in the coming weeks.  Thanks to the City of Cleveland, use of the facility is free to us.

We are committed to hosting a spectacular event this year.  We promise that you won’t even notice the difference.

We’d like to acknowledge Dollar Bank for its very generous contribution to Pedal for Prizes.  Dollar Bank is the first-ever corporate sponsor of Pedal for Prizes.

Lastly, Pedal for Prizes is a free event and will likely be free as long as we can host it.  However, your donations help us sustain the event into the future, regardless of how much or little you contribute.  So if you enjoy the event, leave us a tip we can save for next year.  Participate in the 50/50 raffle.  Or buy a t-shirt if we have them for sale.

Thank you for your support. Ride on!

OB Pedal for Prizes 2015 is coming soon!

Old Brooklyn Pedal for Prizes
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Register beginning at 11:00am, Raffle at 3:30pm
Estabrook Recreation Center, 4125 Fulton Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44144

(For express registration, please click here to download our release form. Print and fill it out and bring it to the event to save yourself some time.)

Old Brooklyn Pedal for Prizes returns for its sixth year on Saturday, May 16, 2015 during Cleveland Bicycle Month. Win great prizes, including brand new bicycles, simply by exploring local businesses and other points of interest in Cleveland’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood by bicycle.

Slightly different this year, Pedal for Prizes will begin and end at Estabrook Recreation Center, 4125 Fulton Road. Arrive there anytime after 11:00am to register and receive your punch card and map of twenty Old Brooklyn businesses and points of interest. Ride your bicycle to as many of those destinations as you’d like, having your punch card stamped at each. Make your registration quicker and more simple by downloading, printing, and completing our release and bringing it to Estabrook Rec.

Everyone returns to Estabrook Rec by 3:00pm to receive a raffle ticket for each stamp on your punch card. Each is a chance to win prizes of your choice. Drop as many raffle tickets you’d like in the bucket next to the prize you would like to win. The raffle begins promptly at 3:30pm

The event is free and open to all. Participants are advised to practice bicycle safety: bring a lock, wear a helmet, and follow local traffic laws.

Old Brooklyn Pedal for Prizes is a grassroots volunteer initiative organized by a small group of committed neighborhood residents and merchants. This year marks the group’s fifth Old Brooklyn Pedal for Prizes.

Please like Pedal for Prizes on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or check our blog for updates.

Last Minute Info to Know

If you haven’t read our helpful info blog post from earlier this week, please do so now.

Here are some last-minute details that you should know:

Weather: We’ve been watching the forecast and we can conclude two things: It will be chilly and there’s a chance of rain. Please come prepared for the worst.  Remember, the event goes on rain or shine.

…

Loew Park conditions: Because of all of the rain over the last week, Loew Park may be a muddy mess.  We’ll look at setting up in a drier location if field conditions are indeed poor.

We’ve had beautiful weather the last three years, and participants have been able to  sit in the grass and relax prior to the raffle.  That may not be the case this year, so you may want to bring a seat if you can.

…

Prizes: We’ll have around 60 prizes valued at a minimum of $20.  The prize list is still changing and probably will not be final until a couple hours before the raffle, so sorry we cannot post it online in advance!

…

Expedited Registration: If you can, please print this form, fill it out, and bring it to the park. It’s good for you and it helps us out, too.

Stay tuned for additional last-minute details.

Helpful info for Pedal for Prizes 2014

It’s been a busy spring for us, but we’re ready for everyone to have a great time at our fifth annual Old Brooklyn Pedal for Prizes on Saturday, May 17.

Here’s some helpful information for you:

Rain or Shine: The event happens on Saturday regardless of the weather.  Right now, the forecast is calling for a chance of rain and temps in the high 50’s, but we all know that that can change! Prepare for the weather!  

…

Expedite your registration by downloading and completing our release form, which can be downloaded here.  Bring it with you on Saturday and save yourself from having to wait in a long line.

…

Pedal t-shirts available: We’ll have t-shirts available for a minimum donation of $15.  They’re American Apparel poly-cotton mix, available in unisex and women’s styles. This will be one of the only times you can get a t-shirt. All proceeds are put back into the event.

…

Registration: Registration begins at 11am.  We’ve increased the amount of time for participants to try to reach all twenty destinations at an enjoyable pace. We will register participants up until 2pm.

Pedal for Prizes is completely free and open to cyclists of all ages and skill levels.

At Loew Park, you’ll sign a release form and receive a map of twenty destinations and a punch card.  Cyclists are free to go on their way to as many destinations as they’d like in any order.  Stay at destinations as long as you’d like.

We will have volunteer extraordinaire Paul Lopez on hand to assist you with light repairs to your bike.

We reserve the right to request you bring your bicycle to the registration table.

If you’re driving your bike to the event, Loew Park has a limited number of parking spaces.  However, there plenty of on-street places to park.  We just ask everyone to please be respectful to our Old Brooklyn neighbors.

…

Cheating: Pedal for Prizes is meant to be a fun event done by bicycle. We have no tolerance for people who use other means of transportation (i.e. motor vehicle) to travel to destinations.  Participants found to be using forms of transportation other than a bicycle will have their punch cards revoked and will be barred from participating in the raffle.

If you observe instances of cheating, please report it to us immediately.  Merchants and people staffing our destinations will be keeping an eye out for foul play as well.

…

What to bring: Your bike, helmet, and a lock.  We advise everyone to practice bicycle safety, including obeying local traffic laws.  Helmets are strongly encouraged, but not required.

You may also want to bring money to spend on lunch, a snack, or a drink out in the neighborhood…or a Pedal t-shirt!

You might also want to bring a chair, since we cannot provide seating for everyone at Loew Park leading up to and during the raffle.

A few local businesses are sponsoring backpacks at Pedal for Prizes, so make sure you get yours.

…

Destinations: Half of the destinations are completely new, while the other half have been featured sometime in one of our previous four events. This year’s event will have twenty destinations.  You won’t know the destinations until you register at Loew Park.

We provide you a map and addresses of destinations at which you’ll have your card stamped.  Some participants have had success using GPS in the past.

Destinations will stop punching cards at 2:45pm.  Return to Loew Park by 3pm and exchange your punch card for raffle tickets.

…

Raffle: We will be raffling approximately six bikes, as well as many other prizes.  We won’t have a final list until a day or two before the event, as we are receiving and packaging prizes up until the last minute.

Help us move the raffle along by returning punctually and dropping your tickets in the bins of the prizes you’d like to win.

Please remain patient during the raffle and help others be patient as well.  Your cooperation will help it go quickly and smoothly, which everyone would like.